Summer camp
started this week. Any anxiety, any worries quickly disappeared when they
arrived, saw their friends and there counselors and left. There were brief goodbyes,
but mostly they walked off or ran off, carefree and happy. As a parent, it is a
picture that is bittersweet. I hate
saying goodbye, but I catch myself smiling wistfully, taking comfort that they
are carefree, happy, and safe. Yet as
parents said their goodbyes and watched their children happy, carefree, and
safe, many of us couldn’t help but think of the news that quickly made its way
around the Jewish world at the same time. The three Israeli teenage boys who
had been studying in a Yeshiva in the West Bank, who decided to hitchhike home
and were reported kidnapped a little over two weeks ago; were found dead and
buried outside of Hebron. Three teenage
boys who studied sacred texts, three teenage boys who were probably as carefree
and happy in their lives in Yeshiva as our kids are in camp, were brutally
murdered and left in shallow graves. The news has left Jews in Israel and
around the world reeling. The news has left parents desirous of holding their
kids a little tighter, hugging them just a little longer, and reminding them a
little more often that they cannot afford to be too carefree, too innocent and
too unaware.
This Shabbat we
read from Parsha Balak. B’nai Yisroel has arrived on the eastern shore of the
Jordan River and are waiting to enter into the Eretz Canaan. Balak,
the king of Moav and the tribe of Midian have heard of B’nai Yisroel's recent
victories against the Edomites and the Amalekites, and they are scared.
Realizing that warfare doesn’t work against B’nai Yisroel, Balak decides to
invoke the spiritual world and figures that a curse would have a better result.
So Balak hires Bilaam to curse B’nai Yisroel. On three separate occasions,
Bilaam tries to curse B’nai Yisroel as he had been hired to do. However with
each attempt to curse comes a blessing. Well needless to say, Balak is
infuriated as he realizes that no prophet, no soothsayer is capable of cursing
Israel. Rather, the only way to defeat Israel is to lure them away from their
values, their behavior, and their study of Torah.
While
ChaZaL, (the Talmudic Sages) have very few kind words for Bilaam, the final blessing that Bilaam makes is
undeniably the most beautiful blessing. The blessing is so powerful, and evokes
the ideals of B'nai Yisroel’s sense of community and its covenant with Hashem
that its first line is part the morning service, and this first line of the
blessing is among the first words a Jewish child learns when learning the
prayer liturgy. Ma Tovu Ohalecha Yaakov Mishkenotecha
Yisroel. How goodly are your tents O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel KinChalim NitYu K'GaNot Alei Nahar Ka’AHaLim
Natah Hashem Ka’ARaZim Alei Mayim - stretching out like brooks, like gardens by
a river, like aloes planted by Hashem, like cedars by water. Yizal Mayim MiDalYav V’Zaro BMayim Rabim
– Water shall flow from his wells, and
his see shall be by abundant waters… (Num. 24: 5-7). Clearly, Bilaam sees a
very picturesque and peaceful community with tents and tribal camps arranged in
such a way as to ensure modesty and sensitivity to privacy (Rashi). However the
Talmud in Sanhedrin 105b explains that the terms Ohalecha (your tents) and
Mishkenotecha (your dwelling places) refers to B'nai Yisroel’s two spiritual
homes. Tents refers to the Beit Midrash – the houses of study and dwelling
places refers to the family home, where the Shechina the aspect of Hashem that
dwells between a husband and wife in their home. It also alludes to the
synagogue, the houses of prayer. Bilaam’s
frequent allusion to water, rivers, and brooks is symbolic of a life
source. For Bilaam, at that moment, in
his blessing of B’nai Yisroel, he saw them as a source of life and a source of
peace that just need to be left alone to grow and spread its message of life.
Bilaam’s
blessing remains relevant even during this tragic time. Yes three innocent lives were taken by
individuals and a movement that believes in the sanctity of death. Yet Hashem, Torah, and Judaism are all about
life, about the behavior in the now, about doing everything to promote life. This
is embodied in Torah Study – the Ohalecha, and the in Houses of Prayer
(Mishkenotecha). We study in order to
better understand how to fulfill God’s commandments. We pray in order to
strengthen our connection to Hashem. We don’t study Torah and Talmud in order
to figure out how to kidnap and murder; and we don’t enter our houses of prayer
in order to curse those who wish to harm the Jewish people. Rather we pray that
our children can remain safe, carefree and learning Torah.
Peace,
Rav
Yitz
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